Congress to submit memorandum against farm laws to President on Thursday

New Delhi, December 22, 2020

A delegation of Congress Members of Parliament (MPs) and leaders, led by its former President Rahul Gandhi, will meet President Ram Nath Kovind here on December 24 and submit memoranda signed by more than 2 crore people seeking his intervention for the annulment of three controversial Central farm laws passed by Parliament in September.

The meeting with the President comes at a time when thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and other states are staging protests since November 26 at different points on Delhi's borders with Haryana and Uttar Pradesh demanding repeal of the three laws.

A statement from the Congress, issued by its general secretary K C Venugopal, said that "lakhs of India’s farmers have been on protest in freezing weather against the three blatantly anti-agriculture laws aimed at bartering their interests in the hands of select crony capitalist friends of Modi Government. They have been blocked from entering the national capital for the last 27 days despite prior notice and peaceful intent, it said.

"The three anti-farmers legislation have caused immense pain and anguish among the farmers and farm labour across India. The farmers have been agitating requesting the Government of India to annul these anti-farmers legislations and since last few days, they are sitting on an indefinite strike against these laws. 44 farmers have already lost their lives during the ongoing protests," it said.

The statement said Congress leaders led by Rahul Gandhi and leaders of other political partieshad vehemently opposed the Bills inside and outside Parliament.

Gandhi and Congress leaders had also undertaken an extensive "Tractor Yatra" across Punjab and Haryana as well as in other states.

The statement said the Modi government had initially put on a conciliatory face but soon made its intransigence apparent.

"It has become absolutely clear that the Modi government is only committed to the welfare of large corporates instead of innocent farmers and farm labour. The government has also been on an overdrive using public money to create false propaganda and narrative in favour of the draconian farmers bill and discrediting the protesting farmers. It is pushing manufactured surveys in media discourse to create support in favour of these anti farmer laws," the statement said.

"From taking the government head-on in Parliament, where the government blatantly and undemocratically suspended opposition MPs to labelling us as anti-national, the government has chosen to brazenly defame, discredit and eventually tire out the lakhs of protesting farmers. The Modi government and its ministers have chosen to insult them.

"As a step further in the sustained opposition to the anti-farmers legislations, the Congress party had launched a nationwide campaign for collecting memoranda of appeals addressed to the Hon'ble President of India signed by the farmers, farm labourers and other stakeholders opposing these legislations right from the initial stage of introduction of these Bills in the Parliament. Around 2 crore signatures, urging the intervention from Hon'ble Rashtrapati ji for withdrawal of the three legislations, have been collected till now," it added.

NNN